Former Iraqi premier Allawi denies WikiLeaks Iran attack plan

Nov 30, 2010, 10:33 GMT

Berlin - A former Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, denied Tuesday that Iraq - under his leadership - had ever urged a pre- emptive military strike against neighbour Iran , as cited in the WikiLeaks documents.

Allawi, in a German radio interview, also accused the whistleblower website Wikileaks of raising tensions in the Middle East by its release of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

The cables which became public late Sunday quote candid, off-the- record candid views of regional leaders.

'I don't think it makes sense to publish these documents, because they build up additional tensions in this region which is already so tense,' Allawi was quoted saying by German public radio service Deutschlandfunk.

Allawi was speaking in English, apparently by phone from Baghdad, with German radio station Deutschlandfunk.

He denied Iraq had urged a pre-emptive military strike against neighbour Iran, saying he was sure it was not so in the time he was prime minister in 2004 and 2005.

'As long as I was in office, I never asked anyone to attack Iran,' he said. 'I can't say for sure that other governments didn't ask for it. But I have no concrete knowledge of it.'

Allawi's secular al-Irakiya alliance is in talks with incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on forming a coalition.

In the interview he accused the Iranians of interfering in his country and even trying to influence the coalition formation.

'Iran has repeatedly vetoed certain Iraqi politicians and made threats,' he said, and added, 'Al-Maliki has Iran's support.'

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